


let's talk about freedom

by johnnlaurenss



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Apocalypse, Fluff, M/M, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 05:45:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13160523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnnlaurenss/pseuds/johnnlaurenss
Summary: He draws a birthday cake in the dirt outside of his tent and puts fake candles on top of it, then stares at it for about thirty seconds before blowing air angrily and making his cake disappear.“Happyfuckingbirthday,” he mutters to himself, and he waits for some giant to come bursting through the woods to tell him he’s a wizard or some bullshit for just a few minutes. Then, after a reasonable amount of time, considering, he accepts his fate as a Muggle in a nonfiction world where there’s actual honest-to-god zombies. Not the supernatural creature he would have picked, obviously.***In which there's a zombie apocalypse, and Grantaire finds there's more to surviving than just staying alive.





	let's talk about freedom

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from Sam Smith's _Pray _, because I'm obsessed with the song and the whole album, and it basically inspired this whole thing.__
> 
>  
> 
> __  
> _Unbeta'd - all mistakes are my own._  
> 

Today marks exactly eight-hundred and ninety three days since the world ended.

 

Coincidentally, it’s Grantaire’s twenty-third birthday.

 

He supposed it’s kind of pathetic to know exactly how many days have passed since the beginning of the end, but there’s not much else he can do aside from fighting and running. Plus, if he’s right, and it really _is_ his birthday, then he’ll be damned before he lets anyone judge him for counting the days.

 

Then again, someone would have to be alive to judge him for that.

 

He had a stash of chocolate he was saving for the occasion, some he ransacked probably a few months ago from a shelter. He had a whole bag full, all different kinds of chocolate, it was truly beautiful—he was gonna use it to trade, if he came across other survivors, save for a few pieces that he’d enjoy himself on special occasions.

 

Then some nasty little urchin swiped his bag of goodies while he was neck deep in zombies, fighting to survive.

 

Grantaire only caught a glimpse of the brat as he darted away, unruly dark hair and a pickaxe on his back. And, of course, Grantaire’s precious tattered bag of candy clutched in his filthy little hands. If Grantaire hadn’t been too busy shooting zombies in the face, he probably would have chased after the kid.

 

The kid did do one bit of good for Grantaire, though—he made it very clear that there are other survivors out there.

 

That’s how he’s gonna spend his birthday, and every day that follows, the same way he’s spent every day since he saw the kid; he’s looking for the survivors, because they’re gonna muddle through this hellscape together.

 

He draws a birthday cake in the dirt outside of his tent and puts fake candles on top of it, then stares at it for about thirty seconds before blowing air angrily and making his cake disappear.

 

“Happy _fucking_ birthday,” he mutters to himself, and he waits for some giant to come bursting through the woods to tell him he’s a wizard or some bullshit for just a few minutes. Then, after a reasonable amount of time, considering, he accepts his fate as a Muggle in a nonfiction world where there’s actual honest-to-god zombies. Not the supernatural creature he would have picked, obviously.

 

Like any wizard, fictional or not, Grantaire’s on a quest—so he dissembles his tent and packs it up, makes sure his spear is clean, and checks the area to make sure he isn’t leaving anything behind. He’s been at this long enough that he’s gotten really good at making sure everything is packed in case he’s got to make a run for it, but paranoia and anxiety always make him double and triple check his land before moving on. With his tent secured in his rucksack, gun in his waistband, and spear in hand, Grantaire leaves as silently as he came; there’s not a trace of his presence remaining in the area.

 

Grantaire’s grown very good at being a ghost. He doesn’t think the zombies are intelligent enough to track him, but he’s not naive enough to believe that any survivors wouldn’t follow after him. He’s lucky he’s been a ghost for a while before the world went to shit, the practice served him well.

 

The urchin isn’t as sneaky; Grantaire’s been able to track him for miles and miles now. The kid is smart enough—or weightless enough—that he doesn’t leave footprints, but he’s got good instincts and he sticks to the river, and every now and then Grantaire finds a chocolate wrapper dropped carelessly onto the ground in the way only children do and he’s reassured that he’s still on the kid’s path.

 

Sometimes, if he lets himself think, he realizes that he’s following a _child_ , a kid who can’t be more than thirteen and that’s allowing some, and his heart restricts painfully in his chest. Children have no business in apocalypse; though, he supposes, none of them really do, and if this kid is still alive then maybe there’s more to him than meets the eye about his age.

 

When thoughts about children in a war zone get too depressing for his tastes, he instead imagines a past for this young boy full of adventure and exhilaration. At first, he gives the boy two professional boxers for parents, as it would give an acceptable backstory to how he’s so good at surviving—but the story hits too close to home and ends with the kid becoming a bitter self-loathing ex-boxer prodigy who left the limelight after an overexposure to living in his parents’ shadow. The whole point of this exercise was to give this kid a _cool_ backstory, not an echo of Grantaire’s, so he makes himself start over.

 

“His name is Henri,” Grantaire decides resolutely, “and he’s tougher than nails because one parent was in the navy, but he’s clever like his other, who was a professor.”

 

Grantaire’s own parents hated all things political and dropped out of school to become celebrities; which means this story can’t lead anywhere depressing or eerily similar to his own life experiences.

 

Henri, he decides, is only a few months away from thirteen, and he’s one of those kids who will always tell you that he’s twelve and three quarters because it sounds more mature than twelve. Henri’s an older brother, something he used to be extremely proud of before the apocalypse began. Now, he roams the land with his parents and younger brother and the navy officer teaches them all how to properly fight and the professor turns out to be excellent at manufacturing weapons. The only reason they’ve made it this far is because Henri is excellent at scouting out shelters; he had lots of practice playing hide and seek with his friends when he was much younger.

 

In the end, even the nuclear family picture Grantaire conjures up for the kid gets too depressing to continue on with; if he’s really got two parents and a brother and a secure familial unit, there’s probably no chance they’d let a young man with a scraggly beard and makeshift spear into their troop.

 

To hell with it. For all Grantaire knows, Henri’s teamed up with a bunch of other little urchins around his age, and Grantaire will swoop in there heroically to lead them to safety where he’ll adopt them as his own.

 

The idea of Grantaire being heroic—or _having children_ for that matter—is so damn comical that he’s got to pause and take a minute to compose himself, lest his hysterical laughter attract a stray. While he’s stopped, he lets himself drink some water and stretch out his muscles. It’s only in the middle of a particularly painful hamstring stretch that he notices the candy wrapper on the bank of the river.

 

There shouldn’t be anything peculiar about it, it’s an ordinary chocolate wrapper like the ones Grantaire’s been tracking to this point. What Grantaire finds mysterious, however, is that the wrapper has been cleanly ripped into two pieces.

 

A quick survey of the surrounding area proves that the rip was deliberate. The other half of the wrapper is nowhere to be seen, but Grantaire is certain that if he backtracked his steps or trekked on to the next marker, it would be the other half of this wrapper.

 

“Filthy stinkin’ street urchin,” Grantaire hisses. He shifts his grip on his spear, rotating it so that he’s using it defensively instead of as support on his hike. The kid knows Grantaire is on his trail—how long he’s known is uncertain, but all he can tell for now is that this kid is leading him to a trap.

 

Damn him and his naivety in thinking this kid was too young to be heartless. The virus sucks the souls out of the survivors, and when you die, the virus makes you suck the heart out of everything else.

 

There’s nothing immediately surrounding him that alerts Grantaire to the kid’s presence, so his best guess here is that the kid is far enough ahead of him, or sneakier than Grantaire originally pegged him to be. He sees three options from here; continue following the kid and hope that he can survive the trap, draw the kid to him to take care of the brat himself, or to run. He’s about ten miles from the city at this point, not far enough into the trees for this plan to be totally crazy. The nice part about taking shelter in the trees though, is that most of the zombies stick to the cities. Every now and then he’ll come across a camper zombie or a hiker zombie, and hell have a terrifying fight going against them and their outdoorsy weapons. But it’s safer here, safe enough he can fall asleep in a tree and not worry about being eaten. Running now would mean returning to the city—he can’t allow this kid, or his companions, to track him just because he stayed in the safety of the trees.

 

The upside to drawing the kid out and letting him find Grantaire, is that he’d be able to question him and most likely properly scare him into leaving Grantaire alone. His moral compass keeps reminding him that he’d be interrogating and terrifying the shit out of a _kid_ , though, so that option is out.

 

Which leaves the option of willingly walking into a trap. Grantaire is fairly confident with his fighting abilities; his hand-to-hand combat is obviously exceptional and he’s grown so familiar with his spear that it’s almost an extension of his arm at this point. He’s clever enough he knows he could think himself out of a situation. The thought almost makes him laugh—gone are his days of self-deprecating, replaced now by a tough grown understanding that he’s adaptable when it comes to surviving.

 

Still. As confident as he is in his ability to survive an apocalypse, he truly had _no idea_ who this kid belongs to. He has no clue if he’d be waltzing into a scene straight from the Brady Bunch or Prison Break. Grantaire’s taught himself not to trust people farther than he can throw them, and even know that distance has shrunken.

 

He’s been alone for just over eight hundred days, and every day he goes on alone a larger part of him wants to give up altogether.

 

Walking into a trap is also out of the question. He’s stuck with horrible choices, a Catch-22 situation right smack in the middle of a goddamn zombie apocalypse. He sighs, and glances at his spear. He hasn’t properly cleaned it since the last hiker zombie he impaled with it, so the thought of having to use it on a kid is even more horrifying to him.

 

_Damn_ him and his goddamn sense of compassion. Who needs compassion in the middle of a zombie apocalypse? He misses the days when he didn’t give a fuck who he hurt or who hurt him.

 

Another idea crosses his mind.

 

He only allows himself ten seconds to debate about it; it’s just as foolish as the other ones but he doesn’t have time to keep standing around like an idiot. He’s exposed, he’s been in one area too long without securing it, and there’s a kid somewhere near him who is waiting for Grantaire to make his next move. He doesn’t really have a choice now, except to make the most reckless decision he can think of.

 

Grantaire starts a campfire.

 

If his old city self could see him now, he’d be laughing his ass off at his future self. Old Grantaire only knew how to light a joint, but this Grantaire can start any fire from a match to a bomb.

 

Useful survival skills 101, courtesy of a book entitled “How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse, and Other Tips You’ll Never Use”. The author probably wrote a tone of other stupid books, like “How to Survive a Virus That Makes You Eat Brains, and Other Things That’ll Never Happen”, or “How To Make A Comeback When You Write a Stupid Book”.

 

He’s still got the book somewhere, in his belongings, because it makes him laugh, and if he ever comes across the zombie version of Brandt Schroeder, he’s gonna punch him in his zombie face.

 

It’s midday, and it’s still Grantaire’s birthday, so he cooks himself some noodles since he has a real fire, and lets himself stretch out along the rock. His fingers are constantly twitching towards the gun in his waistband, just in case, but there’s no sound around him for miles.

 

He attracts the undead before the kid shows up.

 

The first attack is just one zombie, a scary looking thing that was probably once a very pretty young girl but now only has half its hair and probably half of its skin as well. It isn’t much of a fight; Grantaire shoots it once in the head and the thing crumples pathetically. Grantaire dumps the body in the river and then whistles as he tends to his fire.

 

The second attack is a bit more difficult.

 

There’s three this time, probably friends who went on a camping trip and had the Worst Spring Break Ever. They’re strong, for the undead, but Grantaire’s been doing this for as long as they’ve been zombified. He throws his spear the second they enter his line of sight, impaling one and sticking it to a tree. It doesn’t kill the thing, but it incapacitates it long enough for Grantaire to deal with the other two. One is fast, so Grantaire reaches for his gun and shoots it in between the eyes. It crumples, which leaves the ugliest one next.

 

It’s got three patches of hair, total, and they’re matted and covered with dried blood. It’s missing one arm, and what remains of the torso is mostly just guts and other stuff Grantaire doesn’t want to think about. He sighs sadly, lets the thing growl and take another step towards him before he pulls a knife out of his backpack and stabs it into the thing’s skull. When it falls to the ground, Grantaire turns to the last one.

 

Somehow, it pulled itself off of the spear and started to amble towards Grantaire. A large chunk of its chest was still stuck on the spear, but that’s the sickening thing about zombies, they don’t fucking _die_ until their brain turns to mush.

 

He only has a second to decide between wasting a bullet or taking his knife out of the skull of the dead body on the ground.

 

The zombie grabs him before he’s able to fully make a choice.

 

Grantaire cries out when nails dig into his arm. The stupid fucker _clawed him_ ; without thinking, Grantaire swings his fists and yells out when the nose shatters under his hit. The punch startles the creature badly enough that it releases its grip and stumbles back. Grantaire fires three shots into its skull the second it’s not on him, and the zombie collapses in a pile of bones and dust.

 

“Mother _fucker_ ,” he yells, furious, as he looks at the wound on his arm. “Goddamn stupid fucking asshole undead _ugly son of a bitch_! I wasted three bullets on you! _Fucker_!”

 

His hands are shaking as he reaches for his rucksack to pull out his med kit. The cut isn’t too deep, luckily, though god knows what it takes for one of those ugly fuckers to turn someone. He’s trembling so bad he can hardly open the kit long enough to examine what’s in there.

 

He finds bandages, a needle and thread, and some antiseptics that look somewhat promising. He’s not sure how he’s going to be able to give himself stitches, but he’s got no choice but to try.

 

“If that fucking kid wants to show up any time now, I’d really like to stop using my goddamn bullets,” hisses Grantaire under his breath.

 

“Wotcher,” says a cheery voice from six feet above him.

 

Grantaire screams, drops the med kit and reaches for his gun, immediately aiming towards the trees from where the voice came. There, sitting in the foliage, with his pickaxe in one hand and dark hair pushed messily back, is the damn _urchin_ he’s been chasing for days.

 

“ _You_!” Grantaire yells, wincing when pain spreads up his arm as he tightens his grip on the gun.

 

“Yeah, me. ‘Ow do you do?” The kid grins in a childish way, all teeth and no malice, just amusement. “What’re you starting a fire for? S’no wonder you attracted so many nasties, your smoke signal practically called ‘em by name.”

 

Grantaire watched as the kid swings his pickaxe at the tree, lodging it in the trunk so he can jump out of the branches easily. He’s skinny, short for his age, but he’s strong— he pulls the axe out with ease and swings it like he’s been welding the thing since he was a toddler.

 

He’s not sure if he should lower his gun or not, but the kid plops down on the ground next to the fire and sighs when the flames warm his hands. “Still, s’nice to be warm. You’re an idiot, though.”

 

“How long have you been leading me like a pig to the slaughter?” Grantaire demands, no preamble. He hasn’t got the time—not before, and especially not now.

 

The kid looks affronted. “Mate, I ain’t one of those nasties.” He points to the dead undead on the ground for emphasis. “Got me a ticker that’s still beatin’, see? I’m _rescuing_ you.”

 

Grantaire lowers his gun.

 

“Rescuing me from what, exactly?”

 

He cocks an eyebrow, looks around the surrounding area and smirks, apparently amused by whatever he finds. “A life o’ solitude, apparently,” the kid says, laughing. He draws his knees to his chest, peering curiously at Grantaire. “Don’t you got anyone you’re tryin’ to survive this thing for?”

 

A pang runs through Grantaire’s blood, turning his chest cold when he thinks about when the apocalypse first began, and a happy smile and long hair tied back, and eyes that grew cold when blood spilled onto Grantaire’s hands.

 

“No,” he says sharply.

 

The kid looks at him.

 

“M’name is Gavroche,” he says after a beat. “Maybe you ain’t trying to survive this for someone but you are _trying_ to survive, and we can help.”

 

This is more than Grantaire expected when he realized the kid was leading him on. He narrows his eyes. “You’ve been letting me follow you for all this time because you want me to join your Merry Men? No thanks, Little John, I’m set with surviving on my own.”

 

Gavroche rolls his eyes. “You don’t trust me,” he says with a shrug. “It’s smart, but you’re dumb. You don’t have to trust me to know that it’s easier to make it through the fuckin’ zombie apocalypse if you’ve got someone watchin’ your six.”

 

“Watch your mouth,” snaps Grantaire out of habit. Bile fills his mouth, and he recoils like he’s been burned.

 

Something in Gavroche’s expression softens.

 

“You’re weird,” he says, eyes dark. “But you’re a good fighter. An’ we need more good fighters, we need people who have a will to leave, we need a man like you who, whether or not he wants to make friends, is survivin’. So put your stupid fire out an’ follow me so we can figure out a way to save the world.”

 

Grantaire swallows thickly, still sick to his stomach. He doesn’t really see Gavroche anymore, but the flickering glances he catches of someone he shouldn’t be seeing don’t make sense, so he knows it’s in his head. He drops his head, though his gaze is still trained on the kid—just in case.

 

“I don’t want to save the world, kid,” he says after a while. Eight hundred and one days ago, maybe. Today—not as much. “The world went to hell in a hand-basket.”

 

“Don’t you want to see it become somethin’ once all of this is over?”

 

Grantaire lifts his head. It’s been a long time since he’s ever seen so much hope.

 

“Fine,” he agrees, reluctantly, though it was his plan to convince the kid to continue taking him forward. “Fine. Save the world. Stop world zombification, or whatever. Let’s go.”

 

Gavroche grins ear to ear, and stands up using his pickaxe as leverage. He gestures to Grantaire’s arm. “Yeah, we’re gonna have to take care of that first.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Call it morbid curiosity, or call it the end of the world—Grantaire is fairly certain he’s never done anything stupider than follow a kid who is a known thief into territory of other known thieves. Okay, well, Grantaire doesn’t know that these people are thieves. But they are trying to be saviors to the world or some shit, which makes them just as bad.

 

Gavroche chats amicably the entire time he leads on Grantaire. There isn’t anything he doesn’t talk about, except for anything personal, which Grantaire respects but also finds disturbing. He learns all about the boy’s favorite TV series before the world went to shit, and how he thinks they’d of ended if they had gone on. Gavroche’s favorite subject was lunch, he hated school but that’s where he was when they first broadcasted the zombies, and he had an affinity for the chocolates he swiped from Grantaire.

 

“You never told me your name,” he says suddenly, glaring at Grantaire with as much malice as a young kid can muster.

 

“Um, Grantaire,” he replies smartly, because what the hell, he’s already dead anyways.

 

“Cool,” says Gavroche. “You’ll fit just so with the rest of us.”

 

“Because of my _name_?”

 

“We’ve all—“ Gavroche stops suddenly. His eyes are wide, and though he tries to school his expression, Grantaire can tell this is the face of a child who almost said something they weren’t allowed to say. “Whatever. You’ll learn soon enough.”

 

Grantaire’s arm is starting to sting a little.

 

Gavroche must notice the way Grantaire grimaces and covers the bandage on his arm with his free hand. He snaps, “Don’t scratch at it!”

 

“I’m not an _idiot_.”

 

Gavroche scowls. “If you scratch at it, you’ll make it worse. We got people with medicine to heal stuff like this, so leave it. We’re almost there.”

 

“You can _heal_ zombie infections?!”

 

Grantaire is fairly certain he’s shouting now, but he got much more than he bargained for when he agreed to let this kid take him back to his camp. His mouth is gaping, but Gavroche just rolls his eyes.

 

“You ain’t infected, stop complaining,” he mutters. “I’m not gonna be the one to explain all that science shit to you, anyways.”

 

Grantaire starts to protest at the boy’s foul language again—old habits die hard—but the words taste like blood in his throat and he chokes on them before he can spit them out.

 

Gavroche glances quickly at him, looking guilty.

 

Instead, Grantaire chooses to focus on the way Gavroche told him they’re close to their destination. It’s been awhile since he’s been in the woods, having spent most of his time recently in the deserted city scrounging for supplies. Still, he’s got a fairly decent sense of direction, and an oddly-specific memory, and the only thing he can think of that’s nearby this location is—

 

“We’re here,” says Gavroche happily, skipping as the towering building comes into sight.

 

It’s surprisingly still intact, at least from what Grantaire can see on the outside. Even before the literal zombie apocalypse, the place had been abandoned for years. Still, with it’s towering beige walls and gated doors, it looks secure, it looks—well. Grantaire isn’t sure what to think.

 

“Corinthe Juvenile Penitentiary,” reads Grantaire, from where the words are fading but visible on the side of the gates encompassing the jail. His expression must betray his worry, because Gavroche takes one look at his face before laughing delightedly.

 

“Don’t worry, the jail’s come a long way since the days of maltreatment of young criminals,” he says cheerfully. “Best be gettin’ on with it—been gone for a while, now, they’re expectin’ me back, see.”

 

Grantaire is—to be honest, Grantaire isn’t quite sure what he’s feeling. Gavroche waltzes up to the gates like he’s called this place home his entire life, leaving behind Grantaire who just stands and gapes at the building in confusion. The last time he’d come across this building, it was crawling with zombies. _Where’d they all go?_ Grantaire thinks. _And who the hell is this kid hanging out with if they’re able to take down armies of undead uglies?_

 

His eyes catch on the watch tower right by the front gate, where he sees a flash of metal and something moving.

 

There’s a scream tearing out of his throat before he can stop it, and a strangled, “ _Gavroche_!” breaks free. He’s reaching forward desperately, anything to pull the boy back, but it’s too late—the creature in the watch tower catches sight of him and raises the weapon in it’s hands.

 

Gavroche _waves_.

 

“Wotcher, Feuilly!” he cries happily, and Grantaire’s arm droops.

 

The being in the tower lowers their gun. Faintly, Grantaire hears their call back, “Wotcher, Gav! Welcome home!”

 

This day just keeps getting stranger and stranger.

 

The gates begin to roll open, quicker than Grantaire expected them to, and Gavroche rushes through the open space as soon as he can. It takes him a moment or two to realize Grantaire isn’t right behind him—when he does, he stops in his tracks and whirls around, rolling his eyes. “You won’t get nowhere standin’ out there, only the nasties will come for you! Hurry up, there’s lots of people to meet.”

 

Grantaire closes his mouth.

 

The first thing he notices when he crosses through the gate is that the courtyard looks like it’s been transformed into a military base.

 

To his right, there’s tables filled with weapons and tents with backpacks and clothes and boots. Sitting in an old rocking chair cleaning a gun is a dark-skinned bald man with an infectious smile, one he gives freely to Grantaire as though they’ve known each other their whole lives. “Welcome home, Gavroche!” he says cheerfully, and Gavroche salutes him messily before dumping the small backpack he’d been carrying at the feet of the man. “You made a new friend?”

 

“His name’s Grantaire,” Gavroche tells him, leaning against his pickaxe.

 

“ _Hey_ ,” Grantaire hisses, but the bald guy just laughs and grins at him.

 

“No worries, we’re all friends here,” he says, waving the gun in the air like he’s forgotten it’s in his hands. “I’m Bossuet. Normal procedure when we enter the premise is to deposit bags and weapons with me or whoever else is here before entering the sanctuary. You’re new, so I’ll let you keep your rucksack, but if you wouldn’t mind leaving the spear—”

 

Grantaire’s grip visibly tightens around the weapon.

 

“Righto, no problem, just don’t use it on my friends!” Bossuet carries on, still cheerful and smiling. Grantaire didn’t think it was possible for one person to be so _happy_. “Gav has the drill down, but next you’ll be taken to the medbay to be examined. Joly can give you something for that nasty bump or bruise, but it’s also a checkup to make sure there’s no internal injuries we don’t know about.”

 

“This is so fucking weird,” Grantaire mutters under his breath.

 

Gavroche laughs loudly.

 

“Come on, there’s still more people to see.”

 

He’s right—and everyone he’s got to meet is waiting for him the second he steps into the jail.

 

For eight hundred and ninety three days, the world has been at its end. Yet, as Grantaire takes in this group of survivors who meet him before he’s even got a proper chance to step into their shelter, he’s struck by the notion that this is only the beginning.

 

 

 

 

There’s _so many people._

 

They’ve barely walked in the building when they’re accosted by a small group, all who gape at Grantaire in shock like they’ve never seen another human being before. The tallest one, a dark-skinned girl with unruly hair narrows her eyes dangerously at him. The other two are quite a bit shorter than her, both Asian—one a man with short curls pushed back with an bandana, and the other a girl with blonde hair tied hastily back. Grantaire instinctively curls his hand tighter around his spear as they all stare at him. They’ve got mixed looks on their faces, alternating between attack-mode and morbid curiosity.

 

Someone else decides the next move for him—Gavroche pops up from behind Grantaire and there’s a sharp cry, then the tall girl darting out of the formation to grab Gavroche and crush him in her embrace. His sister, Grantaire assumes, because she’s got the same dark hair and sharp features that he has, though hers are more defined while his are rounded by childhood. He rolls his eyes but gives her a bone-crushing hug back, and it’s such a tender moment that Grantaire can’t help but feel like he’s intruding, but the second he tries to tear his gaze away something curdles painfully in his stomach.

 

“You were gone longer than you told us you’d be gone,” says the girl viciously. Her gaze snaps up to Grantaire. “I hope he’s worth you risking your safety.”

 

“Me too,” sighs Gavroche, earning him chuckles from his peanut gallery.

 

She releases Gavroche after that and stands swiftly. Her hawklike eyes take in Grantaire without missing any detail—her lips purse when she catches sight of his spear, but he can tell by sizing her up that she’s got knives strapped to various parts of her clothes. After a beat, her face relaxes. “I’m Éponine,” she introduces herself, moving gracefully to stand in front of Grantaire. She extends her hand; her grip nearly breaks Grantaire’s fingers. “You should be scared of me.”

 

Grantaire flexes his hand when she releases it. “Duly noted,” he mutters.

 

The other girl comes up to him next. She’s _tiny_ , shorter than even Gavroche, but Grantaire’s learned not to let appearances deceive him. She probably knows ten different ways to kill him using his own spear. “I’m called Cosette,” she tells him, and for a terrifying moment Grantaire is certain she’s going to _hug_ him. She seems to have the same thought, though she eventually deflates a bit and offers him her hand instead. Then, she leans in close, and whispers, “You should probably be scared of all of us.”

 

“I am,” Grantaire tells her, and she grins back—all teeth and ferocity. “Full disclosure, you should be frightened of me, as well.”

 

She drops his hand after that. The look on her face is something Grantaire can’t quite place; it looks like it could be _pride_ , but it’s tainted with something sad, and they’ve been in a goddamn apocalypse for too long that Grantaire can hardly recognize human emotion anymore, anyway.

 

The last one is the man, an inch or so shorter than Grantaire, who hobbles up to him on a cane and immediately begins fretting over him. “My god, you haven’t been properly looked at since this thing began, have you? _Gavroche_ , did you let him get attacked? Is that a bite or a scratch? No matter, we can take care of that. Of course, if you’ll let us. I’m Joly, by the way, follow me.”

 

Joly begins to walk away, not really paying attention to if Grantaire follows him. Gavroche, however, falls in line behind him like nothing’s the matter, and starts telling Joly all about his time in the woods.

 

“You’d better follow,” says Cosette tiredly. “I know he doesn’t look like much, what with his cane and his glasses, but Joly’s one of our toughest allies. He’ll beat the devil out of you if you don’t let him examine you.”

 

“Is he a doctor?” Grantaire asks.

 

Cosette’s face softens. “He’s the best we’ve got.”

 

Grantaire looks between Cosette and Éponine, feeling terribly overwhelmed and frightened. He’s in a place full of _survivors_ , something he’s wanted for so long. And yet, he can’t help but feel as though he’s gotten in a mess that’s bigger than anything he could imagine. These girls, these people, this location—it’s _overwhelming_.

 

“How many of you are there?” Grantaire croaks.

 

Éponine shrugs. “Some come and go,” she tells him. Her voice is razor sharp. “Some never go. You’ll meet us all, eventually. It’s a good place we got set up here, and we worked hard to make it so. Don’t fuck it up for us, okay?”

 

There’s nothing he can think to say back to her except, “I’m Grantaire,” but it seems to do the trick. She smiles at him, and he chases after Joly.

 

 

 

 

The whole place is so large, but it’s been adapted in a way Grantaire can’t wrap his head around. Joly leads him to what’s been donned the medbay—and Grantaire’s mouth drops open the second he enters. It’s set up almost like a real clinic, though the supplies are lacking and the beds are made of scratchy blankets and a random collection of throw pillows. Joly walks him over to one of the beds. When he doesn’t immediately sit, Joly whacks Grantaire’s ankles with his cane and grins innocently when Grantaire cries out. The first thing he does is check Grantaire’s blood pressure and heart rate, which seems redundant until Joly informs him that his blood pressure is really high and gives him a glass of water to calm down.

 

Then he takes a look at the bandage on Grantaire’s arm.

 

“Just a scratch, then?” he asks. Grantaire nods.

 

Joly sighs, but removes the bandages as best he can and examines the stitches. “Did you do these? Gavroche? They’re horrible. I’m going to have to teach all of you how to properly do sutures, this is ridiculous. Lucky for you, it doesn’t look infected. Uh—capital-I Infected, or regular infected, mind you. Still, we’ll give you a shot just in case, and if I can find some—”

 

Joly trails off suddenly, flitting around the room and muttering to himself. Grantaire just stares at him, stares at the room, takes in as much as he can. It’s no hospital—but it’s got beds and bandages and proper suturing kits, and medicines and surgical equipment and more health providing tools than Grantaire’s seen in two years. A brief thought crosses his mind about taking as much of this stuff as he can and making a run for it. But then Joly’s back in front of him, wearing a smile full of happiness Grantaire hasn’t seen in twice as long, and it makes him hesitate.

 

“This isn’t a cure,” he tells Grantaire, as he lifts Grantaire’s arm and wraps a band around his bicep. “Hell, we still aren’t even sure how it works. We’ve got a lot of brilliant minds here, though, so we know it does work. When administered near the sight of infection, it tracks down and kills all cells that don’t belong. It’s like. Well, it’s basically an advanced white blood cell, and it’s been manufactured to respond specifically to capital-I Infection.”

 

Grantaire watches in amazement as Joly administers the drug, inserting the not-cure into his arm right above the zombie scratch. The skin immediately begins to pink up, and Joly sets to fixing the stitches in his arm. “It’ll still need time to properly heal, now, which is why I’m fixing the stitches,” he tells Grantaire. “We’ll bandage it tight, and you’ll need to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t get lowercase-i infected, but you should be in tiptop shape now, my friend.”

 

“My name is Grantaire,” he blurts out, realizing with a jolt that Joly still doesn’t know. “You, uh. Saved my life and all. Thanks.”

  
Joly smiles his happy little grin again, and something relaxes inside Grantaire. “It’s nice to meet you,” Joly replies, and it’s more sincerity than Grantaire has felt in a year. “Now, if you don’t mind, I need to perform an examination on the rest of you. See any residual scar tissue, take a look at your lungs, just make sure you won’t drop dead while you’re here.”

 

“Uh, sure,” says Grantaire.

 

So he takes off his shirt and lies down on the bed, as per Joly’s instruction, and tries not to flinch as Joly’s cold fingers poke and prod his abdomen. “You’ve been stabbed before?” Joly asks, sounding concerned. His fingers trace the scar on Grantaire’s stomach.

 

“It was a misunderstanding,” responds Grantaire lightly. He doesn’t really want to get into it now. Joly hums.

 

“It feels like you’ve got a broken rib or two.”

 

“Residual injury,” Grantaire says hurriedly. “I was a boxer. Cracked some ribs, they didn’t heal properly, cracked them again.”

 

Joly makes an affronted noise. Grantaire peeks at him.

 

“You’re a bit malnourished,” says Joly after a few more minutes. He helps Grantaire sit up. “We can help with that, here. Almost everyone we bring in is malnourished at one point or another, we take care of our people once they get here. I’ll call down to the kitchens and have them start some food for you. Do you have any allergies?”

 

Grantaire shakes his head.

 

“I’ve got to stay here to examine Gavroche, but we’ll have Enjolras lead you to the kitchens and probably on a tour of the rest of the place,” Joly murmurs. He’s distracted by a walkie-talkie in his hands, but he raises his glance to Grantaire after a beat. “Is that okay?”

 

Grantaire is in the middle of trying to locate his shirt, so he’s a bit preoccupied as he says, “Who the fuck is Enjolras?”

 

“That would be me,” says a calm voice from the doorway.

 

Grantaire whirls around.

 

Standing at the entrance to the medbay is probably the hottest person Grantaire’s ever laid eyes on, standing with his arms crossed and an eyebrow raised. He’s got blond hair long enough to be tied back into a bun, an olive complexion, dark eyes, and a pretty mouth that’s twisted into a hesitant scowl. Something flickers in his expression as he takes in Grantaire’s appearance, and then, delightfully, his skin _flushes_.

 

Grantaire realizes he’s still shirtless a moment too late.

 

“Uh, hi,” Grantaire stammers.

 

The corner of Enjolras’s mouth twitches.

 

Gavroche chucks Grantaire’s shirt at his face.

 

“Thanks,” Grantaire mutters, now also blushing. Gavroche salutes him, then turns back to Joly.

 

“I assume you’re our new recruit,” Enjolras says. Even his voice is unfairly pretty. It’s a fucking zombie apocalypse, nothing should be _pretty_ —Grantaire’s pretty upset about it.

 

“According to General Gavroche over there, I was rescued, not recruited,” retorts Grantaire. His best defense against unwanted emotion is sarcasm. He swallows thickly when Enjolras rolls his eyes. “Um, I’m Grantaire.”

 

Enjolras looks Grantaire up and down again, then seems to realize what he’s doing and coughs pointedly. “Pleasure,” he mutters. “Get dressed and follow me, we’ve got some soup ready for you.”

 

For the first time since he’s entered this terrifying jail-turned-military-base, Grantaire doesn’t hesitate.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on [tumblr](https://feuillyys.tumblr.com) crying abt les mis or on [twitter](https://twitter.com/tannscotts) posting about various things.
> 
>  
> 
> comment, kudos, bookmark below!


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